The President of the Office of Electronic Communications is a regulatory authority responsible for telecommunications and postal activities, frequency resources management and compliance with the criteria related to electromagnetic compatibility.

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President of the Office of Electronic Communications imposed a fine on Orange Polska S.A. for failure to implement the Decision

The President of the Office of Electronic Communications (President of UKE) found that Orange Polska S.A. did not fulfil the obligations related to the exchange of information between service providers when handling applications for porting numbers in fixed networks, which violated the provisions of the Telecommunications Act. A fine in the amount of PLN 11 million was imposed on Orange Polska S.A.

From 2 October 2015, the exchange of communications between service providers to handle applications for porting numbers in fixed networks has been managed via the Location and Information Platform with a Central Database (PLI CBD), operated by the President of UKE.

In order to standardize the processes of number porting, the President of UKE, by decision of 21 December 2015, changed the Reference Offer defining the framework conditions for telecommunications access and imposed on Orange Polska S.A. the obligations to send communications to the PLI CBD system.

This decision was immediately enforceable and should therefore have been implemented as of the date of its delivery, that is on 23 December 2015. However, until now Orange Polska S.A. has not started implementing the obligations imposed by the above decision and has not ensured the possibility of sending communications (E07 E09, E10 and E11) associated with the processes of number porting. Therefore, to ensure the continuity of these processes, the PLI CBD system had to accept the data for number porting as accurate and generate communications which, according to the decision, should have been sent by Orange Polska S.A. after a prior data verification.

The President of UKE, while assessing the scope of the infringement, took into account its duration and the fact that the applied temporary solution continues to threaten the correct functioning of the number portability process. This means that the direct consequence of the detected violations is exposing the PLI CBD system to overloads and the related real risk of ceasing its operation, including the functionality which enables locating of the subscriber who is calling for help. In practice there were cases in which there was a real risk of failure to port numbers for entities such as prosecutors’ offices, ministries or provincial offices.

When assessing the current activity of Orange Polska S.A., the President of UKE took account of the fact that this entity had already been fined, including for violations related to regulated services.

The violation committed by Orange Polska S.A. is of persistent nature and may pose a threat to the functioning of the telecommunications market. The fine in the imposed amount is to influence the fined entity to implement the issued decision in full and to respect other decisions issued by the President of UKE in the future.

The decision is not final because Orange Polska S.A. may submit an appeal to the court.